The Windows 8 release Preview has been released, so go out and get it, test it, and wax lyrically, or complain loudly. I'm installing it as we speak, so no word, thoughts, or impressions from me yet. Like it or hate it, at least have fun, folks.

I tried out the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Hated it. I'll save the plastic and money for something actually worth burning to disc. I tried to force myself to get used to it for a couple hours before nuking it from orbit with an openSUSE installation DVD. Really... I'd be better off playing around with DOS than Windows 8. :|

I tried out the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Hated it. I'll save the plastic and money for something actually worth burning to disc. I tried to force myself to get used to it for a couple hours before nuking it from orbit with an openSUSE installation DVD. Really... I'd be better off playing around with DOS than Windows 8. :|

Oh, wait, this is just angry bashing with nothing to add to the discussion. Nevermind then.

I tried to force myself to get used to it for a couple hours

Interesting. Windows 8 Release Preview has only been available for about 5 hours, which would mean that you'd have to have been following Windows 8 - related announcements very actively to have time to have downloaded, installed and used it for hours already.

I call bullshit.

Really... I'd be better off playing around with DOS than Windows 8. :|

I heartily agree. Though, that's only because maybe you'd actually end up learning something.

Woah-hoho Trollholio, how about at least giving UZ64 an opportunity to respond before going to the bottom of the barrel with petty personalized insults that make you look more like an astroturfing shill then offering reasonable objections... While I don't personally find any OS warrants 'hate', there are several 'features' of Windows 8 that are far from 'benefits' and are not a move forward in terms of progress making DOS an apt comparison.

The fact UI forces you to use components of the Metro interface that will not allow you to multi-task/multi-window while accessing those 'features' of the OS will be a complete deal-breaker and failure of epic scale in many production environments. Of course for as a passive interface trash/to for 'consumption' and push marketing Windows 8 us a marvel at selling bullshit to the willfully blind.

You clearly haven't seen any of the comments where I've expressed my dislike for Windows 8 and especially Metro. I still object to such blatant bashing-posts such as UZ64's one.

I actually have to wonder who I even could be a shill for when I've clearly said multiple times that I don't really have much experience with OSX and thus won't comment on it, that I really like Windows 7 as my desktop but I really dislike Metro, and that I use Linux on a daily basis but at the same time criticize Linux distributions and F/OSS software for all their shortcomings.

You clearly haven't seen any of the comments where I've expressed my dislike for Windows 8 and especially Metro. I still object to such blatant bashing-posts such as UZ64's one.

Oh, well then... you must know what I'm talking about? So what's the problem? And by the way, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and the Windows 8 Release Preview are *not* the same thing. One was released in February, which I tried and hated, and the other just recently, which I refuse to waste more time and plastic on.

And in response to BluenoseJake, yeah, I agree... "a few hours" is not much. I know... I wanted to play around more with it... but that was before I got it installed. When using it, I realized just how bad it was and just couldn't stand to use it very long.

My experience with that wretched Start screen and the lack of a Start menu on the traditional desktop, combined with the pure shittiness of traditional keyboard-and-mouse control on a desktop setup in Metro (face it: ITS GUI BELONGS ON A PORTABLE TOUCHSCREEN DEVICE), plus Microsoft forcing you to create an online account to download these supposedly amazing Metro "apps" and pushing a cloud-type setup is... just something I refuse to f--k with.

They're forcing us to create Windows "cloud" accounts just to install these supposedly amazing Metro "apps", while at the same time trying to force us out of the traditional desktop by making its use as inconvenient and unpleasant as possible. They're furthermore blocking ALL other operating systems out of any ARM-based Windows 8 machines using so-called "trusted computing" (I prefer the FSF's term for the acronym, it's more accurate...) unless they pay up like Red Hat/Fedora.

They're also providing a traditional Windows/desktop version of Internet Explorer, while blocking other companies from releasing traditional desktop versions of their browsers. They're removing the ability to develop traditional desktop applications from the basic version of, eh, Visual Basic.

But if you want to argue that I'm bitching about the company's practices instead of the OS, all I have to say is: Metro is absolute SHIT unless you're using a tablet or phone (ie. touchscreen), and Microsoft is making the Windows desktop as inconvenient as possible to use to force people away from it. The end result is a shitty operating system.

You can set it up without a Live account. I've run it like that for a while.

Also, after a while it ... becomes strangely non-annoying: Most apps are pinned to my taskbar, and for the others, Win + type-to-search works quite well, even though the graphical transition is a bit jarring. I could easily use it daily (and in fact I've done so since the desktop preview arrived) - though I wouldn't say it's better than Win7, everything considered.

I installed XP right before the 911 attack. I dropped my DSL bridge and it stopped working. It took a week for the replacement to arrive and the OS refused me access because it couldn't phone home to confirm authorization.

You left out Windows 2000. I still consider Win2k to be the high point of Windows OSes.

"High point" which was quite flawed in its innocent and pristine approach to the web security, for example.

And anyway, the things nice about 2k were mostly brought by NT 4.0, few years earlier. You just had to not care about gaming (well, DX at least) and USB (easy, back then).
But 4.0 wasn't hip in its time the way 95 or 98 were (oh the irony), plus it was a bit before its times in RAM requirements (still, lower than 2k).

I agree with your post. However, I would also add that 'Metro' on the phone is shit too. Metro is the worst, most confusing UI's I have ever seen. On top of that, it is by far the ugliest UI as well. Microsoft is a Billion dollar+ company. Can't they spend a few bucks and hire a real Graphic Artist instead of having the janitor create graphics in Paintbrush?...:-)

Oh, well then... you must know what I'm talking about? So what's the problem? And by the way, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and the Windows 8 Release Preview are *not* the same thing. One was released in February, which I tried and hated, and the other just recently, which I refuse to waste more time and plastic on.

I think a post like the one you just made would've been favorable, as opposed to the small flamebait comment you left. . I think a lot of your criticisms are fair, but I wouldn't even know that, had you not followed up with a more level headed comment.

And in response to BluenoseJake, yeah, I agree... "a few hours" is not much. I know... I wanted to play around more with it... but that was before I got it installed. When using it, I realized just how bad it was and just couldn't stand to use it very long.

I think if you would've spent a little while longer, you might've come away with a different opinion. From what I've seen, it takes people a fair amount of time to adjust, after which they find the Metro workflow pretty natural to use.

My experience with that wretched Start screen and the lack of a Start menu on the traditional desktop, combined with the pure shittiness of traditional keyboard-and-mouse control on a desktop setup in Metro
(face it: ITS GUI BELONGS ON A PORTABLE TOUCHSCREEN DEVICE)

What specifically don't you like about it? I find I can find things across my system faster. I need to find a File, I can filter my search down, I need to find an article within an app, I can filter my search down to just that app. And so on and so fourth, I recently switched back to Windows 7 on one of my laptops and I sorely missed that feature.

plus Microsoft forcing you to create an online account to download these supposedly amazing Metro "apps" and pushing a cloud-type setup is... just something I refuse to f--k with.

Well, in the Control Panel app you can turn off all cloud syncing (All it does is sync apps and app settings to the Cloud in case you ever switch PCs it auto downloads them again.) This is all clearly spelled out in the permissions required by the specific apps, a huge step forward in privacy awareness compared to the status quo on Windows 7.

If it bothers you that much, why don't you just switch it off?

They're forcing us to create Windows "cloud" accounts just to install these supposedly amazing Metro "apps", while at the same time trying to force us out of the traditional desktop by making its use as inconvenient and unpleasant as possible.

This meme has taken on a life of its own. The traditional desktop has received a LOT of love in this release. Multimon set ups are much better than vanilla Win7, File/Copy dialogs have been redesigned to cater to power users, there is a new and awesome Task Manager with richer visualization and control over your system, the system uses less resources, etc. All things which are appreciated by Desktop AND Metro alike.

Also, starting today, Microsoft is listing traditional Win32 applications in the App Store (They provide descriptions, screenshots, and link to the application website where it can be downloaded), so it becomes a great repository of even traditional Windows Applications. I see this as a win for the Desktop too.

They're furthermore blocking ALL other operating systems out of any ARM-based Windows 8 machines using so-called "trusted computing" (I prefer the FSF's term for the acronym, it's more accurate...) unless they pay up like Red Hat/Fedora.

Let's be clear here: You were never going to run Linux on your ARM Tablet anyway. Thanks to hardware makers. It's not because of locked, secured, or trusted bootloaders ever. It's because of drivers.

Same reason I can't just throw vanilla Linux and have it work out of the box on my Android tablet without being severely limited. Drivers.

A lot of the important drivers (Graphics, Sound, WiFi, Camera, 3G, etc.) for tablets are proprietary binary blobs, essential black boxes of functionality.

Even then, the open source glue which binds the Android core to the binary blobs are written using Android specific code (especially with regards to power management, something which iirc, hasn't been put into Linux Kernel proper yet.)

So the likes of Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, etc. aren't about to just willy nilly hand out the source code to interface with major components of their SoC chips.

I think that's more restrictive and prohibitive than anything Microsoft has done.

They're also providing a traditional Windows/desktop version of Internet Explorer, while blocking other companies from releasing traditional desktop versions of their browsers.

This is a side effect, not a conscious effort to block out 3rd party browsers. Unsandboxed code does not execute under Windows ARM Tablet devices, period except for digitally signed Microsoft code.

This is likely due to performance and battery worries, and despite this, I'm not really fond of the solution.

I hope Microsoft is able to come to a sort of agreement with Chrome and Mozilla (Hell, they came to one with Adobe..)

If you're a student you can use DreamSpark, or one of the other dozen or so ways to get the Professional Suite of Visual Studio. Or you can use Mingw, that isn't magically going to go away. Or you can use Visual Studio 2010 Express which includes the tools needed. Or you can install Visual Studio 2012 Express, install the Windows SDK (Both of which you'd already likely have if you're serious about Windows Dev) and wire them up yourself to the VS2012 IDE.

But if you want to argue that I'm bitching about the company's practices instead of the OS, all I have to say is: Metro is absolute SHIT unless you're using a tablet or phone (ie. touchscreen), and Microsoft is making the Windows desktop as inconvenient as possible to use to force people away from it. The end result is a shitty operating system.

Why is it bad? I think that's a more productive discussion than simply saying "It's bad" . Is it bad because you haven't seen it used in any heavy duty applications yet? Do you feel the platform is immature? Does the fullscreen thing bother you?

All would be valid concerns, and all with some degree of hope for being fixed in the very near future.

This reminds me of when WinForms was in its hay day, and WPF came out. People claimed WPF was useless for LOB, and fast forward to today, and people are clinging to WPF LOB saying it's the best thing ever invented.

Let's be clear here: You were never going to run Linux on your ARM Tablet anyway...It's because of drivers...

In the distant past, Linux had terrible driver support, but because people could contribute their own drivers, that all changed. Now you can put it on almost any PC. Okay, free graphics acceleration etc support lags the binary blobs, but it's amazing how much works. What's going on with ARM tablets is _preventing_ people from developing functional drivers, and preventing the situation from improving. It turns "never" from a figure of speech ("not yet") to an actual, real, "never."

I could believe in 1995 people saying we'd "never" run Linux in the way we do today due to drivers. Things change, assuming we let them.

"Let's be clear here: You were never going to run Linux on your ARM Tablet anyway...It's because of drivers...

What's going on with ARM tablets is _preventing_ people from developing functional drivers, and preventing the situation from improving. It turns "never" from a figure of speech ("not yet") to an actual, real, "never." "

Not really, this secure boot restriction isn't even in place everywhere. There are ongoing efforts for example to reverse engineer some of Samsungs SoC stuff, but something is needed on a grander scale, across a broader range of hardware to reach a semblance of success.

My point being, and maybe I didn't make it well enough: Windows 8 on ARM being locked or unlocked isn't preventing anyone from installing Linux or whatever the day Windows 8 on ARM ships, because you really couldn't do it anyway.

I think anger and outrage is much better focused on Qualcomm and TI and Samsung who ARE in the position to affect great change in the industry. Hell, even Rasberry Pi's come with binary blobs, and they're the latest lovechild of FOSS.

We need to change the culture, and Windows 8 for ARM doesn't really do that, in either a positive or negative direction.

Much of what you're complaining about is pure BS driven by ignorance of what's actually available to solve your issues.

My experience with that wretched Start screen and the lack of a Start menu on the traditional desktop, combined with the pure shittiness of traditional keyboard-and-mouse control on a desktop setup in Metro (face it: ITS GUI BELONGS ON A PORTABLE TOUCHSCREEN DEVICE), plus Microsoft forcing you to create an online account to download these supposedly amazing Metro "apps" and pushing a cloud-type setup is... just something I refuse to f--k with.

They're forcing us to create Windows "cloud" accounts just to install these supposedly amazing Metro "apps"

Wrong. You aren't required to create a cloud account at all.

... while at the same time trying to force us out of the traditional desktop by making its use as inconvenient and unpleasant as possible.

See above. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

They're furthermore blocking ALL other operating systems out of any ARM-based Windows 8 machines using so-called "trusted computing" (I prefer the FSF's term for the acronym, it's more accurate...) unless they pay up like Red Hat/Fedora.

Nonsense. UEFI is a boot specification that can be implemented by any vendor and ARM. Red Hat/Fedora are free to do precisely that.

They're also providing a traditional Windows/desktop version of Internet Explorer, while blocking other companies from releasing traditional desktop versions of their browsers.

95 - shit, but since there was really nothing else suitable...
98 - bearable; 98SE - I can live that
Me - with that even more, as long as one remembers (unlike many) that it has a bit too many changes from earlier 9x, and so the old tricks tend to brake the system
XP - more of quite decent 2k, with tweaks here and there
Vista - some hiccups at the start, mostly from driver turmoil; very decent after service pack
Win7 - virtually the same OS as service packed Vista, people get captured by "7 magical number" thinking
Win8 ...oh well, perhaps analogous to 1.x or 2.x, I suppose; but afterwards, 3.x was quite likeable ans spearheaded the way for later domination.

Ultimately, every of those of versions will fall under "good old times effect" - you already do that with 9x. In 2030s many will probably do that with Win8.

I know this is not time for high expectations yet, but I've found it way too buggy for a Release Preview. A quick look around showed many inconsistencies, specially at the Metro interface.
Run, Microsoft, run!

This is forcing the consumer so far in one direction I can’t see anything else but backlash.

You can’t even install free apps without a Microsoft Account, which requires giving them your phone number and address. On ARM platforms, you will not be able to install apps any other way than through the store. I cannot believe that this practice can be legal.

That's what you "get" when you choose to use closed platform ... In a sense Windows 8 and iOS/OSX can help FLOSS word to spread out.
People may be so frustrated they would be more eager to try something else. However, it may just make them to install Windows XP/7 as well, so we'll see.

For me it's clear I will continue avoiding closed sourced, walled gardens for as long as I will be able to.

What I'd love to know is the about any of the under the hood changes being made at the lowest level - in Windows 7 for example GDI received some major TLC when it came to scalability, has that been taken a step further? with the improved memory and power manager - have some/all of the win32 API's had some tweaking to take advantage of those under the hood changes - I assume deep down in the kernel such as a move to a more tickless kernel etc. For me, Windows 8 looks perfectly ok as it is but my interest is more in the under the hood improvements given that they've done a pretty good job as far as I see in regards to user interface consistency (the new theme plus changes that will appear in RTM later).

I've tried each of the previews so far in the Win8 series. None of them boot on my hardware that runs Win7, most Linux distros and FreeBSD. Even in the latest VirtualBox, which has guest settings specifically for Windows 8, it won't boot. Makes my choice of whether to purchase Win8 or not an easy one.

This sounds like the poo-poo comments when the first iPhones and iPads came out.

Microsoft is going to sell a ton of Windows 8 systems, whether the geeks here like it or not.

This is aimed at consumers who need something dumbed-down and simple to use for common everyday tasks. Microsoft does indeed get it. They have spent millions upon millions on focus groups, feedback forums, etc... to get a good idea of what they are doing right and wrong.

Most of you here are power users and don't make up much of a market at all.

Perhaps W8.1 will be out in a year and that will likely appeal more to the power user crowd but for now Microsoft needs to move VOLUME of product to get the whole ecosystem moving.

Does anyone find it confusing in regard to IE:
1) Have right click bring up a context menu; and/or,
2) right click in white space to bring up any open tabs plus the address bar.

I have found myself moving to the mouse to the top of the page before right clicking expecting the tab bar at the top to appear, but if doesn't because I haven't right clicked.

Why not just allow the mouse moved to the top bring up the tabs and address bar instead of right click *shrug*

Try this:

Open, grab and drag the settings menu to the left hand side of the screen and then open IE which will appear to the right of settings - I dig this for easy access.

However, if you try to swap back and forth expanding either window you have to double click on the thin horizontal separator bar between the two windows. Why not just double click on one side or the other to expand?

What I don't get is that it could be really usable system without ever needing to go back to the desktop app, but currently MS's mouse functionality reminds me of when Mr Burns ran into the crippled irishman. several times.

It reminds me a bit of gnome 3 in that you are reliant on the mouse and keyboard to have full control over the ui not just copy paste etc. MS could provide a mouse driven interface better than what they have, but it seems lacking.

I guess the touchpad once done properly (e.g with it's own little screen to be ostentatious, link a stylus to the touchpad to write on) will take over from the mouse as the mouse from the joystick :/

Microsoft lowered the minimum requirements for Windows 8, BUT I've just read that must have a CPU with "Execute Disable Bit" ability. If not, Windows 8 doesn't support your CPU!!

I just happen to have two T42 laptops with Pentium M 745 Dothans, which I was hoping to use Windows 8 on. Guess, I will be skipping Windows 8 altogether, if this annoying requirement can't be circumvented.